Mrs. Edward Freely, and all the more so, because it would probably
require some ingenuity to win her. Mr. Palfrey was capable of
horse-whipping a too rash pretender to his daughter's hand; and,
moreover, he had three tall sons: it was clear that a suitor would be at
a disadvantage with such a family, unless travel and natural acumen had
given him a countervailing power of contrivance. And the first idea that
occurred to him in the matter was, that Mr. Palfrey would object less if
he knew that the Freelys were a much higher family than his own. It had
been foolish modesty in him hitherto to conceal the fact that a branch of
the Freelys held a manor in Yorkshire, and to shut up the portrait of his
great uncle the admiral, instead of hanging it up where a family portrait
should be hung--over the mantelpiece in the parlour. Admiral Freely,
K.C.B., once placed in this conspicuous position, was seen to have had
one arm only, and one eye--in these points resembling the heroic
Nelson--while a certain pallid insignificance of feature confirmed the
relationship between himself and his grand-nephew.

Next, Mr. Freely was seized with an irrepressible ambition to posses Mrs.
Palfrey's receipt for brawn, hers being pronounced on all hands to be
superior to his own--as he informed her in a very flattering letter
carried by his errand-boy. Now Mrs. Palfrey, like other geniuses,
wrought by instinct rather than by rule, and possessed no
receipts--indeed, despised all people who used them, observing that
people who pickled by book, must pickle by weights and measures, and such
nonsense; as for herself, her weights and measures were the tip of her
finger and the tip of her tongue, and if you went nearer, why, of course,
for dry goods like flour and spice, you went by handfuls and pinches, and
for wet, there was a middle-sized jug--quite the best thing whether for
much or little, because you might know how much a teacupful was if you'd
got any use of your senses, and you might be sure it would take five